John Leavy’s Blog

Part I of The Ultimate Guide to Internet Marketing deals with developing a strong web front. In the discussions that follow let’s think of our web front much like a campaign front in a battle. Our web front includes the website and the organization’s blog. At times the blog is an integral part of a site and at other times it has a different look-and-feel and resides on a completely separate domain. The website and the blog are the two contact points visitors are eventually driven to from other channels such as landing pages, emails, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Community Forums. The next few pages give us a broad brush overview of what is takes to develop a strong web front. Feel free to scan the topics and jump into the one portion that is the most relevant. You can always come back and review the other topics. At the end of Part I, and every other Part for that matter, there is a 2 Minute Drill so we can review the key points of each serving.

Let’s divide the website into two parts for this discussion; the messaging found on its pages and the design and layout of the site itself. Much like the book and music of a Broadway play; one person might write the lyrics while a second person puts them to music. Each skilled in their own craft not much different than a web developer constructing the pages while the marketing person word-smiths the message.  Both talents are rarely found in the same person. A blog discussion follows the talk on websites.

Don’t Let Your Website Fall Short in an Area Where Most Websites Fail - if the story is not compelling, if it does not draw the reader in, if there is no plot to the story, the disinterested reader will surely close the book and find some other interest. The website visitor hits the Back button on his or her browser if the same conclusion is reached about a website. The content on the website must not be disconnected, dry or rambling. Learn how compelling content keeps visitors involved.

Are You Compelling Your Visitors to Take Action Now? - if a company wants the website visitor to call the toll free telephone number, give them a reason and then tell them to call. Don’t let the visitor draw their own conclusions; help them along the educational, decision-making, buying process.

Treating Every Website Visitor the Same is a Fatal Mistake - Learn How to Avoid this Disaster - different groups of website visitor come to the same site for various reasons. Let’s say we run a school survey site. We might see teachers, administrators and parents visiting our website. They all have different goals even though they all want to be educated. Only one group is the decision-makers and potential purchasers; the administrators. Learn how to construct a website to separate visitors and send then down different educational paths.

How Are You Using the Eight Seconds You Have to Grab a Visitor’s Attention? - a website has approximately eight seconds to grabs the visitor’s attention. Take the time now to watch eight seconds go by on your watch or the computer’s clock. Eight seconds is not very long is it? If the visitor is not engaged in those first eight seconds expect them to head off to another Internet venue; perhaps the competition. A well-written tagline can catch the visitor’s eye and draw them into a discussion. Too many messages only distract the visitor and cause them to leave the website. Learn how to sharpen the website messaging.

You’ll Never be Given a Second Chance to Make a Good First Impression - it is unkind to tell the new, proud parents the baby is ugly; but facts are facts. There are some pretty ugly websites out on the Internet. I do not have to identify the URLs; we have all come across them and wondered “What is this company thinking?” Don’t they know their website is atrocious? It wouldn’t attract flies. Learn how to leverage a website against the competition.

Intuitive or Imperceptive - Are You Losing Visitors Along the Way? - in other words, get the website visitor to where they want to go on the site easily, quickly and with little effort. Some website navigation is full-color, slick and fancy; but of little use. Learn the dos and don’ts.

Find Out How Your Web Front Stacks Up Against Everyone Else on the Internet - there are a number of services on the Internet where a person can run website analysis to get an idea of how the website generally complies with the accepted guidelines of a properly constructed site.

Don’t Assume What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You - websites need to be periodically looked after. With so many people adding content and pages and removing the old stuff; things happen. Pages get lost, images stop displaying and forms no longer send vital information to the right parties. Develop a strategy to take the website through its paces periodically; perhaps every quarter to make sure everything is operational.

Keep Website Visitors Coming Back to the Well - freshening the website content can be done in conjunction with the periodic due diligence; but serves a different purpose. Search engines like to see website content change. This can be accomplished by having one person lightly edit the existing content on the website - say every two months. Then have someone else do the editing and take advantage of the two people’s writing styles.

Does Your Organization Treat Content as an Expensive, Expendable Commodity? - It “costs” dearly to create content; time, money and effort; resources that neither the company nor individuals can afford to squander. Doesn’t it make sense that once a white paper is created is it repurposed as website content, blog posting fodder and a source for press release hurrahs? Learn how to develop a Content Repurpose Strategy and save time, money and valuable company resources.

Introduce Clients and Prospects to Another Side of the Organization - Think of a weblog as the vehicle where an organization can introduce its domain experts and key people in a more casual manner. The weblog can be a place where clients can be brought into discussions about design, problem solving or the direction of the company.  Blogs are great ways to instantly communicate with clients or customers. Learn how quickly one could be blogging.